Scale of Hong
by CrystallicSky
Summary: After getting hit by a new Shen Gong Wu, Jack shows Chase his emotional side. CHACK, ONESHOT


**Scale of Hong**

**By: CrystallicSky**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Xiaolin Showdown or any of its characters.**

Warnings: Homosexuality, coarse language, sexual situations, etc.

Chase Young hadn't the slightest idea why he'd done something so sheerly _stupid_ as he'd just done.

To interfere in a Showdown in which he had no personal interest was one thing. Allowing the Xiaolin monks to have it anyways was _also_ another thing.

To rescue an unconscious Jack Spicer struck by the Scale of Hong was _quite_ another.

The warlord himself was unsure as to what had motivated him to do such a thing: he had simply seen a flash of rainbow light strike the goth square in the chest, watched his body go limp and his eyes roll back into his head, and the very next thing he was aware of was standing in the foyer of his palace, arm looped around a pathetically slender waist as he held the knocked out, little fool up.

Chase not only knew he'd regret it, he'd _already_ begun doing so.

Spicer, the hopeful idiot, would surely look too deeply into this spur of the moment thing, take it as a 'sign' that the man cared for or had some sort of interest in him just because he acted on impulse and saved a pitiful non-warrior from particularly hypocritical warriors that would likely have taken the opportunity of an unconscious Jack to unhonorably pummel him when he couldn't fight back.

The dragonlord gave a growling, exasperated sigh. He would have to nip _that_ in the bud, and _quickly_: he already saw enough of Spicer as it was, the little stalker.

Without hesitation, Chase grabbed a fistful of trench coat, holding the albino up by his front as his other hand raised and cracked across a pale cheek, immediately snapping the youth out of his unconsciousness.

"Spicer," he sharply demanded, "now that you are no longer off in Dreamland, you will leave my presence _and_ my palace at once. _Do not_ read into this anymore than necessary, eith-"

"_Fuck you_," Jack suddenly roared, hands bracing on the warlord's armor as he removed himself forcefully from his idol's grip.

The man was too stunned by the expression of _rage_ and _hate_ on the face he was so used to seeing in a dopey grin around him to maintain his hold on the youth, his grip uselessly slack with shock.

"I am motherfucking _sick and tired_ of you treating me like crap, you asshole," the goth growled at the warlord, fists clenched at his sides and his teeth audibly grinding in his mouth. Red eyes practically _glowed_ with fury and Chase gaped at the boy that so brazenly cussed him out, even as Jack found yet _more_ hateful things to spew. "You are the biggest bastard I've _ever_ had the misfortune of knowing and I'd personally like to wish you the slowest, most painful death _possible_, you rotten, son of a _bitch_!"

It was around then that Chase's pride asserted itself from behind the shock of _Jack Spicer_ apparently having a backbone and the elder man scowled, catching hold of a thin wrist (presumably in the process of going to flip him the bird) and _squeezing_.

The black-clad youth gasped in pain and immediately fell to his knees before the overlord.

"How _dare_ you disrespect me so, Spicer?!" he roared imperiously. "I am _Chase Young_, and a lowly worm like _you_ is my clear inferior! You will _never_ speak to me so impudently again, do you understand?!"

A weak and mewling whimper gave the man pause and, in a fairly quick turn-around from the bold Spicer of mere moments before, the kneeling goth was quivering like a leaf and cringing away from him as he pleaded, "Oh, God, Chase, _please_ don't kill me! I'm sorry, I'll never…I'll never do it again, I promise, just _please_ don't kill me…!"

Chase was once more startled into releasing his grip as the boy began _crying_, terrified sobs wracking his body as a veritable flood of tears poured forth from bright, amber eyes.

What in the _hell_?! Spicer had always seemed an emotional train-wreck, but this was ridicul-

…

_Amber_ eyes?

The warlord glanced down at the shaking, weeping pile of teenager upon his floor and confirmed the odd fact that yes, Spicer's normally garnet eyes were currently a glowing _yellow_!

How could that be? Spicer was a normal mortal; possessed of a single, fixed eye-color throughout his lifetime. In fact, the only way that even a non-mortal could truly alter their ocular coloring was through…magic…

The Scale of Hong, Chase quickly realized: the boy had been targeted by it just before he'd fainted!

It had been _centuries_ since the warlord had so much as heard the name of the brightly-colored reptilian scale and so the details of what this particular Shen Gong Wu did were fuzzy at best, but it clearly had something to do with Jack's strange behavior.

Besides, there were very few problems that context clues were entirely useless against.

In Chinese mythology, Hong was a two-headed dragon that was representative of a rainbow, and here Jack was, eyes changing color and simultaneously going from one extreme mood to the other.

It was not too great a leap for one as intelligent as Chase to determine that the Scale with which the goth had been tagged was apparently forcing different emotional aspects of the youth's personality to the forefront.

The man gave another glance to the piteously whimpering and crying boy on his floor and sighed.

He was going to regret this terribly, but in all honesty, he would most definitely _not_ be okay with leaving Jack alone in the state he was in. After all, who could say he wouldn't next enter some sort of depression and attempt to take his own life because there was no one there to stop him?

Chase deftly caught hold of the youth's forearm, ignoring the frightened noise just shy of a shriek and the way Jack tried to curl in on himself for protection as he was hoisted to his feet. "Spicer," he sighed, "you may relax: I've no intention of harming you at the moment."

The redhead's shaking lessened minutely, but his voice still faltered nervously as he inquired, "Yuh-you d-don't?"

"No," the warlord promised, "I give you my word that while you are under the influence of the Scale of Hong, I shall not hurt a hair on your head."

Jack's arms came up to his chest, wrapping insecurely around his body as he whimpered, "Sc-Scale of Hong?"

"The Dragon of Wind targeted you with it before I brought you here," Chase reminded. "You are emotionally unstable at the moment because of that and I cannot hold you responsible for any emotional outbursts you may have until the effects of the Shen Gong Wu wear off."

"W…well, when'll that be?" the goth squeaked.

"If I had to guess," the man surmised, "I would say that it is a subjective Wu: it is targeting the emotions and pieces that most naturally make up your personality and amplifying them one by one. You have already experienced your outburst of Rage," he pointed out, recalling the subtle glow of already-red eyes, "and are currently in the midst of Fear."

"…S-so…?" Jack timidly prompted.

"It will end," Chase announced, "when each facet of your personality has been expressed in the extreme at least once. Since your personality is unique to you, it is impossible to say precisely how _many_ facets will be expressed or for how _long_ they will be expressed."

Fearful yellow eyes blinked at the overlord, obviously confused.

"It'll be over when it's over," he clarified for the youth.

From this even more timid than usual version of Spicer, Chase had expected silence at his statement, and maybe some anxious twitching and fidgeting.

The low, despairing moan was a bit of a surprise.

"That sucks," Jack proceeded to whine. "What if I'm stuck like this for the rest of my life? I'm outmatched against the monks as it is, and now _this_?" The goth unceremoniously flopped to the floor, burying his face in his hands as he cried, "What _else_ is gonna go wrong in my life before I die?!"

Quickly getting over the startlement, Chase walked forward and caught hold of the teen's short hair, pulling his head up to get a better look at his eyes.

No longer lemon-yellow as he'd expected, the boy's irises were currently a deep, sapphire blue, all the sadness in the world held within them as they gazed listlessly up at the warlord.

"Congratulations, Spicer," he spoke, once more hauling the goth to his feet, "you've entered Sadness, meaning one less mood for your psyche to run through."

"Who cares?" Jack scoffed, his newly-cobalt eyes downcast to match with the otherwise miserable aura radiating from the youth. "_Nobody_ cares about _me_…"

The warlord immediately knew the direction this was going and the foyer was really no place to deal with a depressed young man that was feeling sorry for himself, much less a young man that was going to be having _intense_ mood swings for quite awhile.

The den was a much better choice.

With the barest flicker of magic, the two men were in the cozy, fireplace-warmed room; Jack seated on the plush armchair nearest the warmth and Chase idly watching the boy from his place on the love seat.

"Alright, Spicer," he sighed, "why don't you tell me _all_ your petty little problems?"

Normally, the overlord would not only _not_ ask, he would prevent the youth from saying so much as a word about such a topic: if he wanted to listen to a whiny little story about how upset and hurt a teenager was about how someone in their class invited everyone to a birthday party but them, he'd turn to the internet for its abundance of emo poems.

However, it had become clear that the emotions would only end once they were sufficiently expressed: Rage had ceased as soon as Spicer had gotten to growl mean and hateful things at him, and Fear had likewise ended once the boy had practically pissed his pants in sheer terror.

To make this as quick and painless as possible, Chase would have to indulge Spicer's 'depression' and let him vent whatever silly little things he believed wrong with his life.

"My parents hate me," were the first words out of the goth's mouth, unsurprisingly. "_Hate_ me. Dad got a job as an archaeologist just so he didn't have to see me around the house anymore; sends me gifts, sometimes, pretends he gives a shit, but he doesn't. I _know_ he doesn't."

"You poor thing," Chase droned condescendingly. "_Do_ go on."

"Mom hates me, too," Jack added. "She does the typical mom-stuff, acts like I'm her baby and that she loves me, but…she doesn't. Whenever she looks at me, I can see it in her eyes that as far as she cares, I'm nothing but a drunken mistake that she's being punished for."

_This_ got the warlord's attention. "I was under the impression that your mother doted on you incessantly," he prompted. "You are always going on about how she bakes you cookies and signs you up for all sorts of classes to teach you various skills."

The albino shook his head sadly. "She made me take those classes so I would be out of the house and not anywhere near her line of sight," he informed dejectedly, "and whenever she bakes me something, it's usually poisoned. I even ended up having to go to the hospital once before I caught on."

Believe it or not, Chase had had a mother many, many centuries ago, and she had been a loving, caring, giving woman to the core. Naturally, then, the idea of _any_ mother not only _not_ being those things for her child but going so far as to attempt to _murder_ him was startlingly horrifying to the man.

"That is sick," he fiercely declared. "Why is such a disgustingly unfit mother still walking free and not rotting away in some penitentiary?!"

"She almost _would've_ been after the hospital thing," Jack morosely replied, "but she never got sent to jail or even punished because she started crying and saying she'd only _accidentally_ added in the rat poison and _why_ would she want to hurt her dearest little baby?"

"And you took no further action when the legal system failed?" Chase demanded.

"No," the goth replied. "Why would I have? She's _right_ to hate me. Everyone _else_ does."

The man frowned. "You are exaggerating, Spicer," he said. "It is impossible for _everyone_ to hate you."

"Not really," Jack said, his knees coming up to his chest and his arms crossing over them. "If they've met me, they hate me. My parents, the monks, Wuya, _everybody_ on the Heylin side…you."

"Me?" Chase found himself blinking in surprise.

"Of course, you," the goth answered him. "You hate me the most. I really just count myself lucky that you haven't tried to kill me before like everybody else I've ever…oh, wait, the T-Rex thing; never mind."

"I don't hate you, Spicer," the warlord asserted.

Jack scoffed, resting his chin amidst his folded arms. "Yeah, you do," he said.

"I don't _hate_ you, Spicer," Chase reiterated. "You are supremely annoying and so I _dislike_ you, yes, but I have never _hated_ you."

"What's the difference?" the goth snorted, unswayed by the statement.

"Dislike is nothing compared to hatred," the man spoke matter-of-factly. "Hatred is far more permanent and serious than simple dislike. The difference is that did I truly _hate_ you, you would be very much _dead_ by now."

"You still always call me names, and hurt me, and tell me I'm useless." The redhead sighed, blue eyes drifting towards the flame roaring in the fireplace. "I _am_ useless. I can't fight; I can't even hope to _learn_ to fight with the long-long list of medical problems I've got. I'm totally worthless."

Chase blinked. Medical problems? Spicer had actual physical issues that prevented him from learning how to engage in combat and wasn't simply too lazy or foolish to be taught? "What…what is wrong with you, Spicer?" he inquired.

Jack still refused to make eye-contact, his gaze locked on the fire. Nonetheless, he replied, "When I was a kid…when I first got my start in robotics…I was working on my first robot with humanoid functionalities; a rudimentary Jackbot. Mom walked in on me as I was finishing it up. She wanted me to go somewhere more secluded in the house because company was coming over and she didn't want them to see me so she tried to drag me out of the room. My hand slipped, cut a wire, and I got zapped. Had neuropathy ever since."

The warlord inhaled sharply. "Not the autonomic nerve…?"

"No," the goth corrected, "central nerve."

Well. _That_ certainly put things in perspective. Spicer was unable to learn any sort of martial arts, even should he want to, because he was apparently afflicted with random muscle-weakness and cramps along with a lack of balance and coordination.

It had been a _very_ long time since Chase Young had felt pity, but he was certainly feeling it now. He had always seen Jack as useless, far too clumsy and unskilled to ever be useful to him.

In fact, that'd been the reason he shot the youth's pleas to become his apprentice down: he'd always thought that Spicer had _some_ potential for evil, but had consistently rejected the idea of taking the boy under his wing because Jack's repetitive failures had indicated to him that the goth was not only weak and terrible at combat, but that he was too stupid to recognize the _reason_ he continued to fail (his lack of martial arts training) and consequently act on it.

He'd never imagined that Jack knew perfectly well why he never won Showdowns anymore and knew how to conceivably change that, but was physically unable to enact any kind of improvement.

Perhaps…perhaps there was hope for his potential apprentice yet…

"Spicer," the overlord began, "it is possible that I could…fix you."

Somber blue eyes focused on the man at last. "What?"

"Modern science can do nothing for your condition due to the lack of stem-cell research," Chase clarified, "but magic is a potential solution. Magic could do that same job as stem-cells and, in your particular case, create more nerve cells to replace the damaged ones that would otherwise be impossible to replace due to human biology."

A disconcerted expression crossed the albino's face and for a moment, Chase believed Jack would begin crying about how he was trying to fix him as if he were broken (which he was, essentially, but at the moment, the youth might've taken it as an insult).

Instead, Jack allowed his legs to once more lie normally upon the seat of the chair, his feet touching the ground again as his arms folded over his chest. "You suck," the goth declared.

A black eyebrow arched in question. "…pardon?"

"You suck," Jack reiterated with a snort. "You're such an awesome, badass warrior-type with a kick-ass palace and such a _great_ damn life, and you can't even have the decency to at least be dumb as a rock. No, you've gotta be _intelligent_, too!"

Chase very quickly had an idea of what was going on. "Spicer," he spoke authoritatively, "look at me."

"Why?" the goth challenged, turning jealous emerald eyes to the warlord. "You wanna flaunt your better-than-mine _everything_ some more?"

"Green," Chase dully noted, "Envy."

"Yeah, I envy you," Jack scowled, "so what? I think I'm allowed!"

The warlord prepared himself for a very _long_ rant.

"You're _Chase Young_," the teenager pointed out, "you're my _idol_! You're everything I've ever wanted to be, you can do everything I've ever wanted to do, you have everything I've ever wanted to have…"

Chase found himself disconcerted at the uncertain pause and apparently rightly so as heated, violet eyes locked onto him and Jack's voice gave the breathy whisper of, "You _are_ everything I've ever wanted to have…"

It was then that Jack pounced.

The warlord was abruptly knocked back onto the love seat by the goth's slender body, surprisingly strong legs straddling his hips as Jack's mouth latched onto the elder man's.

"Spicer," Chase growled through kiss after forced kiss, "what in the Hells do you think you're doing?!"

"Mmnnh, you're so fucking hot," the teenager moaned lustily, pulling his lips away from his evil hero's only long enough to move downward and begin mouthing at his throat with sloppy licks and kisses.

The dragonlord did his damnedest to struggle, to try and wrench the boy off of him as it should've been easy to do, but Jack was surprisingly powerful when horny and _would not_ be pried away. Not to mention there were other ways the teen was making it difficult to put a stop to this.

"The whole world's stupid," Jack declared, his long, artistic fingers fumbling with obvious inexperience to undo the man's red sash and his newly purple eyes foggy with lust as they stared the overlord down. "All those 'Sexiest Man Alive' polls? Bullshit! It's you…it's always been you, and it'll always _be_ you. Oh, _God_, Chase, you're so fucking _hot_…!"

Chase had always _loved_ praise; _loved_ to be told how beautiful and sexy and perfect he was, and Spicer was surely no slouch in his doing of such.

Not to mention his scent…

Whether he knew it or not, Jack's whole body was releasing a veritable _ocean_ of pheromones, the natural, mammalian response to the desire to mate and Chase, with his superhuman senses could smell precisely how badly the young man wished to mate with him.

Jack wanted to mate with him _very, very badly,_ apparently, and of course, if that weren't bad enough, Jack's pheromones were actually _arousing_ to him!

When most females (and occasionally males) expressed their desire to mate with him in such a fashion, the man was able to keep himself relatively uninterested because their pheromones were in no way personally appealing to him. One example was Wuya, whose scent he mentally acknowledged was meant to excite him but in which he found no excitement.

Spicer's scent was very different from Wuya's: sweet and sinuous, indicating with perfect clarity the goth's _want_ to submit to Chase's every desire, _whatever_ it may be.

Chase growled low in his chest as Jack began fiddling with the clasps of his breastplate, even as his slim hips began a very dirty rocking motion atop his idol's.

If Spicer could truly be this passionate, the dragonlord mused, it might not be too much of a stretch to make his potential apprentice his potential consort as well!

Still having trouble with the main buckle holding the man's chest-armor on, Jack gave a frustrated whine before a gloved hand came up to help him. "Allow me, Spicer," Chase purred.

"Thanks," the goth grinned, amethyst eyes glimmering at him with the light from the fireplace before they once more turned to the armor preventing him from having access to more of his idol's flesh. This time, they seemed to focus on the actual _armor_ and not what was going to be beneath it and Jack inquired, "Hey, it that real gold making up the trim?"

"Yes, it is," Chase confirmed, frowning lightly at the change of subject.

"Wow, I'll bet it's an antique," the teen noted with excitement, pale hands darting over the metal with interest. "It'd go for a small _fortune_ on _any_ market!" Golden eyes, the same color as the warlord's own glanced up at the man, pleading, "Aw, Chase, you _gotta_ let me sell this!"

Chase Young's jaw literally dropped.

Of course, he knew what had just happened: Spicer had, through no fault of his own, just transitioned from Lust to Greed, having been able to sufficiently express the former of emotions and the effects of the Wu ready to send him seamlessly into the next, but…

_FUCK_, COULD IT HAVE HAD _WORSE_ TIMING?! HE'D BEEN ABOUT TO GET _LAID_, DAMMIT!

With a growl of frustration, Chase unceremoniously shoved the boy off of him and left the room to take care of what Spicer had caused in arousing him, leaving Jack by himself to look over the various, ancient bits and pieces of art and greedily muse as to their worth nowadays.

When the man returned many minutes later, he found Jack settled on the love seat, fully engrossed in a small, carved statue that he held in his hand.

"No, Spicer," he immediately chastised, "you may _not_ pawn that off for _any_ amount of money."

"Sell it?" the youth gasped as if offended by the very notion. "Why on Earth would I want to sell such a magnificent treasure?"

Chase stared at the oddly…sophisticated tone to the goth's voice. Had he…?

"Centuries old ivory, likely carved over a period of three and a half months…" White hands similar to the ivory they held turned the statue over just slightly. "A flautist, Chase? I'd no idea!"

"I…" To hear Spicer speaking in such a calm, intelligent voice had the warlord essentially speechless, and he found himself only able to inquire, "What?"

"Han Xiang," the teenager clarified as if it were obvious to any old idiot, "one of the Eight Immortals. Han Xiang was a philosopher and flautist whose flute gave life and is consequently seen as the protector of flautists. I see no other reason for you to have such a carving in your home other than that you yourself play the flute or once did."

"I did," Chase replied, approaching the youth and plucking the ivory from his hand. "When I first turned to the Heylin side, I learned to play. I'd…forgotten about it since."

"That's a shame," Jack touted, orange eyes catching gold, "I'm sure you are a fabulous musician. I wouldn't mind hearing you play sometime, you know. That is," he added, "_if_ you still recall how."

"If I do, my playing will be mediocre at best," the warlord admitted, mentally acknowledging that the redhead had once more swapped emotions. "It has been _many_ years."

"Nonsense!" the teen declared. "I've little doubt you could outplay Sir James Galway should you try!"

"You are quite the flatterer, Spicer," the man smirked at him. "Have you any idea what emotion it is that is causing you to act this way?"

"That's a valid question," Jack mused. "All things considered, I believe my more intelligent nature is shining through at the moment."

"You _have_ an intelligent nature?" Chase found himself teasing, oddly enough good-naturedly.

"Believe it or not, I _am_ a genius," the goth informed matter-of-factly. "After all, I severely doubt _you_ can boast a 312 IQ."

Golden eyes went wide at the statement. "_312_?"

"Precisely," the teenager confirmed, "and that's the score I received by purposefully trying to answer incorrectly!"

"That…that is impossible," Chase deduced. "You _cannot_ be so smart when you act as some sort of moron on a near daily basis!"

"Not necessarily," Jack contradicted, crossing one leg over the other. "I _am_ a genius, but for me to act as one consistently…well, to put it simply, even _more_ people would want me dead than those that do already, if just for spite of my intellect. If my enemies and the people that claim to be my allies truly knew the depths of my intellect, they would likely attempt to murder me out of fear for their lives. The truly smart course of action in my situation is to-"

"Put up a front," the dragonlord concluded. "Pretend to be a moron, make yourself out to be stupid, and live to see another day."

"Precisely," the goth grinned brightly. "You may not have an IQ of 312, but it must certainly be around 200!"

"198 to be exact," Chase had it noted.

An interested noise suddenly sounded from the youth, but not at the statement, and the overlord watched as Jack sprung up from the love seat and rushed over to the den's bookcase, snatching up a novel in particular. "Hung Lou Meng," the youth acknowledged excitedly. "This is one of the first examples of same-sex love in Chinese literature!"

"So it is," the man nodded, joining Jack by the bookcase and removing the novel from a pale hand, placing back on the shelf, "now-"

"Oh, _no_, you di'int!" the redhead scoffed, tone sassy. "How _dare_ you just take that out of my hand?!"

Chase immediately looked to the goth's eyes: fuchsia. Apparently, another mood swing had taken place; but to what this time?

Jack, as if realizing for the first time where he was, glanced around the room and scoffed again. "This color scheme, by the way, is _totally_ not working for me. It _clashes_, Chase; I _do not_ do pastels or cool colors, and here you've got both of them effing with my style!"

The overlord blinked at the enunciation of a lisp to the youth's voice. No, he thought to himself, that couldn't be possible: Jack _couldn't_ have traversed into…

Well, it never hurt to ask. "Spicer," he began, "you wouldn't happen to be feeling…homosexual at the moment, would you?"

"Um, _duh_," Jack informed condescendingly, hands on his hips. "Isn't it obvious? I am not only a queen, I'm _the_ queen, and you, mister, will treat me as such!"

"So _this_ is the side of you that prompted you to say as much when you were named the leader of the Black Vipers," Chase dryly mocked.

"Huh?"

The warlord was given pause to see that Jack no longer had a sassy, feminine expression on his face, having replaced it for an incredibly dopey-looking blank stare.

A quick look at his eyes assured that they were no longer the bright fuchsia they'd been and were now a chocolatey shade of brown.

"Spicer…" Chase warily began.

"Who?" the teen blinked up at him, and with a start and mild horror, the man realized Jack was entirely serious in his not-knowing of what he was talking about.

"That is your name," he slowly clarified.

"It is?" the albino inquired, eyes wide and staring up at the older man in lack of comprehension.

"Jack Spicer," Chase elaborated. "Your name is Jack Spicer."

"Cool," the youth accepted with an idiotic smile. "And…what'm I doin' here again?"

The dragonlord knew from the previous personality displays that when changing from one to the next, Jack did not lose any of his memory and so knew that any lack of knowledge of the situation was purely the fault of whatever bit of personality was in control at the moment.

He knew immediately what the brown eye-color meant for Spicer. "Idiocy," he deduced aloud, "I knew _this_ one was coming…"

"What one was coming?" Jack blinked at the man, looking entirely like the oblivious dolt everyone made him out to be. "What're you talking about?"

Chase sighed. "Never mind, Jack," he said slowly and clearly, as if he were talking to a very young child. "Follow me."

Jack uttered an ignorantly joyous, "Mm'kay," and obediently trotted behind the overlord as he walked the short distance from the bookcase back to the armchair the youth had originally sat in.

"This is a chair, Jack," the man informed, gesturing to the object. Sadly enough, he was not unnecessarily talking down to the teenager in doing so as the goth blinked, taking in the basic bit of knowledge and nodding slowly in understanding. "I want you to sit on it."

"Okay!" the redhead chirped approaching the chair only to stop and stare at it in confusion. "Ummm….how do I do that?"

Chase could literally not help his palm smacking against his forehead in exasperation, but he quickly got ahold of himself and allowed, "Let me show you, Jack." He spun the albino around in the proper direction for sitting and pressed down on his shoulders while using one of his legs to force Jack's knees to give out, leaving the boy sitting comfortably in the chair.

He was not expecting one of Jack's legs to lash out, hook behind his knees, and _yank_, leaving the overlord to fall flat on his ass upon the floor.

Amazingly idiotic at the moment or no, Chase was _not_ about to let the boy get away with such an impudent act and he immediately got to his feet, looming commandingly over the goth. "Spicer-"

"What's wrong, Chase?" an oddly teasing and (dare he say it?) wicked voice purred, and it took the man a moment to realize it was _Spicer_ who was speaking so. "Forget how to stand up and now you're taking it out on little, ol' me?"

Jack was leaning back casually into the plush armchair, one leg elegantly crossed over the other and his fingers interlaced, a smirk comparable only to Chase's own trademark grin on his lips and a darkly amused expression in colorless, black eyes.

Jack's run-through of personality pieces had finally tapped into his inner-evil.

Good, the warlord decided. Since this whole Scale of Hong-hullabaloo had begun, Spicer had been put in many different lights to Chase's eyes, several of them showing off qualities that the man rather liked being given a much better picture of who the young man truly was as opposed to the whole package that he had originally disliked because he had not before understood the subtle intricacies of Jack Spicer.

He had long thought the youth had a chance at being true evil were he guided in the right direction. If Chase were to be apprenticing him as he'd earlier been considering, he would have to know just what the boy was starting off with and what would have to be done to improve him.

Just how evil _was_ the self-proclaimed _evil_ boy genius?

"Spicer," the dragonlord addressed. "You are feeling evil at the moment, I see."

"How astute," Jack declared in mock pride, "you're so _terribly_ smart, aren't you, Chase?"

"I certainly am," Chase agreed, taking his previous place upon the love seat, not once turning his back to the youth. "I am merely surprised that you _do_, indeed, have _some_ evil in you."

"You're one to talk," the redhead informed, eyebrow cocked in challenge. "Honor, after all, has never struck me as evil, and yet you can't do a single thing without considering how it will affect the honor leftover from your days of 'good.'"

"Silver-tongued, are we?" the overlord noted with a measure of surprise. "Very nice; perhaps you _will_ be able to learn from me, after all. You at least know how to interact with others as a being of evil."

Jack scoffed. "Learn from you? And just why would I need to learn? I'm perfectly evil as it is."

Chase smirked at him. "If that is so, then why do you not _always_ act as you are now? Something is holding you back from being _real_ evil, Spicer, and you know it."

"Of course I do," the albino sneered haughtily, "it's my damned sense of 'good.' It seems that somehow, I still haven't been able to rid myself of my conscience and the like; despite the fact that there's absolutely no reason why I should still feel badly for _anything_ 'wrong' I do when I've been treated no other way but 'wrong' throughout my life."

"Is that all?" the warlord inquired, a grin spreading across his handsome features. If what this evil side of Spicer was saying was the truth, then there _was_ hope for the boy as his apprentice! "I can help you learn to suppress that innate goodness hammered into you, Spicer. After all, I did so for myself and _I'd_ had it much more fiercely pounded into my head by family and teachers and society itself. You shall be a cake-walk to untrain."

The evil young man appeared to consider this, his genius brain clearly working behind those pitch-black eyes. "Hmm," he eventually spoke, "you _do_ have a point…"

"Of course I do," Chase assured, going in for the kill. "Become my apprentice, Spicer. I realize I have denied you before, but I'd not known your true potential then. I do now; I _see_ now what you could be under my tutelage and quite frankly, the forces of Good in the world greatly overpower those of Evil. New blood such as yours is needed. Let me teach you," he coaxed, "let me teach you to be _true_ Heylin, Spicer…"

Black-clad arms folded over a slender chest and the youth nodded slowly. A pale set of lips opened and Chase could practically hear Jack accepting his offer with a 'yes.'

"What will I get out of it?" Jack demanded, coal-colored gaze cool and calculating.

Chase simply couldn't help it: he laughed.

It was awhile before he stopped and when he did, he found the redhead staring at him dubiously. "What's so funny?" the youth inquired.

"Nothing is funny," Chase informed, "I am simply more pleased that I've been in a very long while. If _you_ are the evil I will have to work with, I shall barely have any work to do at all! Not so much as a _trace_ of altruism in you, is there, Spicer?"

"I certainly like to think so," the teenager declared. "I reiterate: what would _I_ get out of this apprenticeship?"

"Naturally," the warlord began, "I would teach you to suppress whatever good it is you have; show you how to allow your _truly_ evil side to shine through, but that is a given. Aside from that, I could repair that neural disorder you informed me of which would make it possible for you to learn to fight. And…perhaps more…"

"More?" Jack inquired, his tone higher pitched and more innocent than it'd been before but Chase took no heed of it.

"More," he elaborated, "in that you could become my personal consort."

"Consort?"

"Since you little stint with Lust earlier, I have toyed with the idea of taking you as a lover" Chase admitted. "You are certainly not ugly, and in your passion, yet _more_ attractive. Besides that, you certainly know how to draw my interest despite your obvious lack of experience."

"I do?" the youth wondered.

"You do," the man confirmed. A dark grin spread across his face as he once more inquired, "How would you like to become my apprentice, Jack Spicer?"

The goth surprised the overlord then. "I dunno," he said, "what do you think?"

Immediately knowing something was different with the teenager, Chase focused his gaze upon Jack's eyes.

Silver irises were fully-displayed within wide eyes as they stared at the older man, glimmering with inquisitiveness and a desperate need to _know_.

Curiosity, the warlord deduced with little trouble, internally cursing that the wicked version of Spicer had been taken away and replaced with a version unlikely to agree to his offer before he could get a solid decision from the darker goth.

"I suppose it makes sense that you should have a curious side, Spicer," the man nonetheless conceded. "You _are_ a scientist, one who has discovered that nothing is impossible through introduction to magic. It seems…natural that you should have an innate curiosity."

"Yeah," Jack briefly acknowledged what his idol said, moving onto _his_ agenda, "say, when were _you_ first introduced to magic, Chase?"

Eager to indulge this particular personality and get it over with quickly, the dragonlord replied, "Ages ago. When I first became a monk, actually; ten years old."

This statement apparently brought another question to the young goth's mind and he inquired, "Whatever made you turn to evil, anyways?"

"Oh, simply the usual motives," Chase answered. "I wanted recognition and power the likes of which I could not achieve as Xiaolin and so abandoned their archaic and foolish ideals to do whatever I wished as Heylin. Mostly, however, I believe it was the sex."

Metallic silver glinted at the man in catlike curiosity as he spoke the question, "What _about_ the sex?"

"The lack of it," came the dryly honest statement. "Monks are _prohibited_ from having sex of any kind, and as healthy male on the verge of adulthood…blue balls were a joke in comparison, Spicer."

"That's horrible!" the youth declared.

"Tell me about it," Chase cattily agreed.

"No," Jack clarified, "that's a _horrible_ reason to become evil! To abandon the good ideals of the Xiaolin for…for _sex_? Horrible!"

The warlord didn't need to glance at the goth's eyes to know another change had taken place, but he did so regardless to determine the nature of the change.

White irises amidst the whiteness of the youth's eyes stared at Chase in a self-righteous frown similar to the kind one might see on one of the Xiaolin monks, judging him blindly for his evilness.

In all honesty, that white-on-white that left only the pupil brought to any sort of attention was creepy to look at, and Chase had every intention of getting this particular mood swing over with quickly.

"The infamous Good side," he greeted, "what a displeasure to finally meet you."

"Someone like you _would_ say that," Jack arrogantly scoffed, once more crossing his arms over his chest. "Well, nice try, but you can't hurt me with petty insults because I know you're nothing but an evil, old monster that just wants to change his ways and doesn't know how."

Chase's entire being reared up at such a statement and within the blink of an eye, he was before the seated youth, hands on either side of the albino's head. "Listen to me, you pathetic little scrap of goodness: you know _nothing_ of me and who I am." The calm-before-the-storm tone with which it was said immediately had Jack cowering back against the plush armchair, white eyes wide as they stared up at the dragonlord whose own eyes were beginning to glower red in warning of the beast within him.

"When you become my apprentice, Spicer," and the man was confident in using the 'when' for surely it was only a matter of time until the goth returned to his normal state or one in which he could be easily persuaded, "I swear I shall see to it that this part of you that hails Good and Xiaolin will be thoroughly _destroyed_…"

And then Jack reached up and kissed him full on the lips.

Chase perked and returned the kiss, hopeful that the goth had somehow regressed back to Lust and he actually _would_ be getting laid tonight. Pale, square hands came up to the dragonlord's face, one cupping his jaw and deepening the kiss while the other threaded carefully through his thick, dark hair.

The man enjoyed the taste of the youth and expressed as much with lips and tongue, impassioning the kiss as much as he was able with the albino sitting and himself standing.

When breath became a necessity, he pulled away and glanced down at Jack with a lustful gaze, intent on looking directly into those amethyst eyes and seducing the already horny boy directly into his bed.

Naturally, then, Chase was given pause at the sight of pastel pink eyes dazedly staring up at him, the rose quartz-look displaying a sort of care and tenderness that the overlord had not been privy to having upon him in several centuries.

While the man was speechless, Jack pulled his evil hero's face back down to his for another kiss and, with their lips still barely pressed to one another, whispered, "I love you, Chase…"

For a moment, the warlord remained speechless. Soon enough, however, coherence returned and he easily dismissed, "No, Spicer, you do not. You are still under the effects of the Scale of Hong, particularly trapped in the emotion of Love: you only _believe_ that you love me."

Chase was once more surprised when, as he dipped down for another kiss (still eager to get the boy in his bed), he was pushed back gently but firmly, Jack softly asserting, "I'm serious, Chase."

The warlord looked down into the youth's crystal-clear pink eyes and, unexpectedly, saw a complete and utter seriousness in their depths. "No…" he reiterated, stubborn in his belief that the goth _could not_ love him. "It is the Wu, Spicer; just like all the other mood swings you've had since you were tagged."

Jack whined and nuzzled his cheek affectionately to Chase's neck. "So what?" he challenged. "That didn't make any of the other things I was tonight less real...When I was in Sadness, I really _did_ feel upset about those things; when I was in Intelligence, I really _knew_ all those things; when I was in Evil, I really _was_ all those things…"

The elder man found himself unable to look away from the teen's earnest, pink gaze as he pointed out, "The Scale of Hong only brings emotions and moods to the forefront of a person's psyche; it doesn't invent them: I really _do_ love you."

And it was then that Chase Young, arguably one of the most elegant and eloquent men in the entire world was shocked stupid. "You…you love…" he helplessly sputtered for a moment before finally managing, "_Why_? _How_ can you love me?! I am evil; a _reptilian monster_, Spicer: _how_ could you _possibly_ love me?"

"Chase," the goth sighed and the warlord noticed the pink eyes were fading into red, "after everything you've seen of me tonight, you should understand perfectly that I love you. I get angry when you hurt me, I get depressed when I feel like you hate me, I get turned on around you, I want to impress you with what I know, I want to be evil for you, I want to know everything about you. As for why…"

Jack stood from the chair, forcing Chase to take a step backwards so that he could do so. His marble-white, gloved hands settled on armored shoulders and once-more fully-red eyes locked with the overlord's golden ones. "My brush with Envy should've explained that: you're my _idol_. You're everything I've ever wanted to be, you can do everything I've ever wanted to do, you have everything I've ever wanted to have…and you _are_ everything I've ever wanted to have…Chase, I love you: if there's one thing I'm sure of in the entire world, it's that."

Chase could no longer deny such a thing: the albino was no longer under the influence of the Scale of Hong (unless this was the most somber and quietly-expressed rage he'd ever seen) and his logic as he explained it was sound.

Besides, he had never before seen Spicer so serious or with such honesty in his gaze.

The dragonlord sighed. "Spicer…" he began, "…I…I am an evil _monster_, Jack. I…cannot even say I recall _how_ to love."

Jack sighed in turn, his hands removing themselves from his idol's shoulders as he stepped backwards, away from the man. "I know," he admitted.

The young genius was surprised to be caught by the waist and pulled back against an armored body.

"But," Chase elaborated with a soft, barely-there grin, "just because I cannot remember doesn't mean I cannot at least try; especially for my apprentice and consort."

Red eyes went wide and the goth hopefully inquired, "You mean…the offer's still open?"

"Should you want it," the overlord confirmed. "Your declaration of love does not change anything else that you have shown me of yourself tonight and I still firmly believe that I can teach you and that you would make an excellent lover, if a bit untried. Besides," he added with a coy smirk, "with all of your flip-flopping until now, I never _did_ get a definite answer."

"You have to ask?" Jack demanded, an overwhelmingly excited grin on his face. "_Yes_; yes, I accept the offer!"

Before the gothic genius could so much as blink, he found himself hoisted off the ground and his legs automatically coiled around Chase's hips for support.

The warlord clearly took no issue with this if the dirty grin upon his lips was any indication. "For the moment, Spicer," he purred, low and seductive, "I believe it's about time for your first lesson under my tutelage…"

Easily catching the tone and implication, Jack's dorky grin spread wider as he assured, "I'm ready and willing to learn, master…"

**A/N: Random idea that I had out of the blue upon remembering that one episode of Teen Titans where they go into Raven's mirror and meets all different facets of her personality.**

Hope you guys liked it! :D  



End file.
